Fabiane Mundim
Biology
Assistant Professor
Contact Information
Office Location: BNR 235-JPhone: 435-797-1526
Email: fabiane.mundim@usu.edu
Additional Information:
Educational Background
Licensures & Certifications
Teaching Interests
As an instructor my primary goal is to create a learning environment in which students from all backgrounds can achieve their potential by thinking broadly, asking questions, and challenging concepts, ultimately improving their expertise.
Studies have shown that establishing a sense of belonging and purpose within the classroom is paramount to enhancing students' educational motivation and achievements. I believe that instructors play a pivotal role in fostering this sense by bridging the gap between theoretical knowledge and real-world applications and therefore forging meaningful connections between the classroom and the broader community. In addition, acknowledging the diversity within the student body and recognizing that students' racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds can profoundly impact their learning experiences is crucial. It underscores the importance of creating an inclusive educational environment where every student, regardless of their background, feels valued, heard, and empowered to excel.
Supported by the above philosophy and multiple pedagogical experiences, I create my courses focused on four main points to optimize student’s learning experience.
BIOL 2220: General Ecology (3 credits) - Fall semesters (even years)
BIOL 4500/6500: Applied Entomology (3 credits) - Fall semesters
BIOL 4750/6750: Ecology in the Underworld: The New Frontier (3 credits) - Spring semesters (odd years)
Research Interests
For several decades, there has been a growing interest in and extensive exploration of research concerning the costs and benefits of plant defense mechanisms against herbivores. This field has raised intriguing fundamental questions such as i) why plants tend to exhibit intermediate levels of defense rather than evolving towards excessively high levels; ii) how breeding for enhanced yield can inadvertently lead to the loss of natural defense mechanisms; iii) why defense levels typically surge after damage but do not persist for extended periods; and iv) which types of damage are the costliest, underlying the trade-offs between growth and defense. To address these important questions in the realm of plant-herbivore interactions, it is crucial to recognize that every organism interacts with other individuals within and between species and with the abiotic environment across various spatial and temporal scales. The intricacies of these multifaceted interactions, along with their effects, costs, and benefits, have led many researchers to narrow their focus to a single trophic level or taxonomic group. However, it is essential to acknowledge that the probability of encountering abiotic stressors, as well as a sequence or combination of biotic stressors (multiple herbivores), can be highly variable yet expected components of these interactions.
In the realm of multitrophic interactions, my research adopts a multidisciplinary approach, delving into the intricacies of plant-herbivore and plant-parasite interactions, as well as host-plant optimal defense strategies. This work operates at the crossroads of plant phytochemistry, entomology, nematology, and the evolution of species interactions. My overarching career objective is to explore the costs associated with resistance and tolerance traits and understand how these factors influence whole-plant multitrophic interactions, both ecologically and evolutionarily. A central component of this research is the integration of above- and belowground interactions. Plants rarely experience attacks in isolation: while leaves and stems are confronted by insects and pathogens aboveground, roots simultaneously encounter nematodes, herbivores, and soil-borne microbes belowground. These arenas are physiologically connected, and defense responses in one compartment often cascade to influence the other. Investigating this interface allows my lab to uncover how cross-compartment signaling and resource allocation shape the full spectrum of defense costs, from metabolic to ecological.
Costs of whole-plant responses to biotic and abiotic conditions include: i) Ontogeny costs, which involve losses in development resulting from early-life antagonistic interactions. ii) Opportunity costs, encompassing losses of competitive status as a result from antagonistic interactions. iii) Metabolic costs, signifying the expenditure of energy and resources due to the maintenance or unnecessary production of defense traits. iv) Allocation costs, entailing the diversion of limited resources or defense mechanisms to less-than-ideal locations. v) Genetic costs, which manifest as losses stemming from inherited traits. vi) Phenotypic costs, which involve changes in strategic allocation (although defense pathways are highly conserved – genetic trait) due to anticipatory costs of antagonistic interaction. vii) Ecological costs, which pertain to the unintended side effects of an interaction caused by a plant's defense mechanisms. The likelihood of the whole-plant to balance these seven facets of costs associated with resistance and tolerance traits depends on their intrinsic ability and the impact of the herbivores and/or parasite attacks. However, if the attacks come from multiple directions (which is often the case), the challenges that plants are likely to face when responding to different attacks (simultaneous or sequential) are different compared to unidirectional (singular) herbivory events. Natural selection should favor plant’s abilities to integrate the correlated sequence of stressors in their physiological responses and preparedness for future stressors. Hence, the importance of understanding plant responses to stress while integrating the reality of multiple stressors.
Specifically, my investigations of the costs of whole-plant responses to biotic and abiotic conditions focus on the ontogeny, metabolic, allocation, and phenotypic costs as they provide a valuable framework for uncovering commonalities between different systems. I seek to determine, for instance, the role multiple stressors and their sequence play in modulating the plasticity of plant phenotypic traits and responses to such stresses. My students pursue how early-stage plants respond to individual and multiple herbivores. Overall, my research and lab investigate a combination of approaches and quantifications of plant responses to multiple herbivores as well as their counter responses to the plant defenses, with the goal to elucidate the full fitness landscape that drives plant costs associated with resistance and tolerance traits. This approach offers a more robust theoretical foundation for exploring the evolution of plant ecophysiology. Nonetheless, with such approach there was/is tremendous potential to expand the study of other facets of multitrophic interactions, which I have used to broaden the scope of the lab’s research beyond the typical study-system or single-framework boundaries.
Awards
2022 UF-IFAS High Impact Research Publication, 2022
University of Florida
Postdoctoral Award for Exceptional Mentoring, 2018
University of Nevada, Reno
2017 UF-IFAS High Impact Research Publication, 2017
University of Florida
Outstanding Student Paper Award, 2012
OTS
Publications | Journal Articles
Academic Journal
- Gibson, A., Mundim, F., Ramirez, A., Timper, P., (2024). Do biological control agents adapt to local pest genotypes? A multi-year test across geographic scales. Evolutionary Applications
- Mundim, F., Cardoso, J., Vieira-Neto, E., Crossing belowground boundaries: Conceptualizing a framework for soil-borne pest spillover. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society BSpecial Issue
- Costa, A.N, Macedo, R., Silva, J., Alves, K., Pacheco, R., Vieira-Neto, E., Mundim, F., Mundim. Assessing ant diversity patterns along Cerrado remnants in Central-West Brazil. Brazilian Journal of Biology, doi: 10.1590/1519-6984.290806
- Halliday, F., Kohli, M., Everingham, S., Brocher, M., Ebeling, A., Kempel, A., Mundim, F., Strauss, A., Xirocostas, Z., Towards an integrative mechanistic framework for biodiversity-consumer relationships. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2025.03.005
An asterisk (*) at the end of a publication indicates that it has not been peer-reviewed.
Publications | Other
An asterisk (*) at the end of a publication indicates that it has not been peer-reviewed.